Every year the Canton Public Library staff name their favorite book of the year. This list is a mixture of Adult, Teen, Tween, and Children's Non-fiction published between December 2016 - December 2017.

When Swedish-born Linda McGurk moved to small-town Indiana with her American husband to start a family, she quickly realized that her outdoorsy ways were not the norm. In Sweden children play outside all year round, regardless of the weather, and letting young babies nap outside in freezing temperatures is not only common--it is a practice recommended by physicians. In the US, on the other hand, she found that the playgrounds, which she had expected to find teeming with children, were mostly deserted. In preschool, children were getting drilled to learn academic skills, while their Scandinavian counterparts were climbing trees, catching frogs, and learning how to compost. Worse, she realized that giving her daughters the same freedom to play outside that she had enjoyed as a child in Sweden could quickly lead to a visit by Child Protective Services.

Traveling to 41 countries in 2015 with a backpack and binoculars, Noah Strycker became the first person to see more than half the world's 10,000 species of birds in one year. In 2015, Noah Strycker set himself a lofty goal: to become the first person to see half the world's birds in one year. For 365 days, with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, he traveled across forty-one countries and all seven continents, eventually spotting 6,042 species--by far the biggest birding year on record. This is no travelogue or glorified checklist. Noah ventures deep into a world of blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, airline snafus, breakdowns, mudslides, floods, war zones, ecologic devastation, conservation triumphs, common and iconic species, and scores of passionate bird lovers around the globe. By pursuing the freest creatures on the planet, Noah gains a unique perspective on the world they share with us--and offers a hopeful message that even as many birds face an uncertain future, more people than ever are working to protect them.

Wayne County is holding a household hazardous waste collection event on Saturday, August 12, 2017 from 8 am to 2 pm at the Westland Shopping Center, 35000 Warren Rd. The collection event is open to all Wayne County residents. For a list of acceptable and unacceptable materials please call (734) 326-3936 or visit the Wayne County Land Resource Management website.

Need help navigating the daily glut of information? These books offer useful strategies, quick tips, and funny stories to help you determine truth from falsehood, likely from unlikely, and serious from silly.

The bestselling author of Proofiness and Zero explains how to separate fact from fantasy in the digital world. Seife seeks not to rail against the Internet, but to act as a guide for the skeptic [with] a handbook for those who wish to understand how digital information is affecting us. Readers of this disturbing but entirely convincing account need to remind themselves that the Internet is pretty useful, but they will not deny that it teems with garbage. -Kirkus Reviews

The American Hiking Society’s National Trails Day® is a nationwide trail awareness program that occurs annually on the first Saturday of June and inspires the public to discover, learn about, and celebrate trails while participating in outdoor activities, clinics, and trail stewardship projects. On Saturday, June 3 area residents are encouraged to hike the Lower Rouge trail and attend a special celebration from 9:00 AM-noon at the Lower Rouge Trailhead, located at Michigan Ave and Morton Taylor Rd. A librarian from Canton Public Library will be stationed at the trail with information on hiking and the outdoors as well as some freebies to help you on your journey. Check out our display in the front lobby, visit cantonfun.org, or call 734-394-5460 for additional trail information about this free family and pet-friendly event.

The Backyard Birdsong Guide is an interactive handbook of birds and their songs for beginning bird-watchers. With a touch-button electronic module housing common vocalizations of 75 species from across Eastern and Central North America, this volume offers a truly sensory way to identify and get to know local birds. Crisply detailed and scientifically accurate illustrations accompany each entry, and up-to-date range maps provide clear geographical reference points. This second edition includes a much-requested new Sound Track Index to help make watching and listening to birds easier.

For fans of The Dog Stars and Station Eleven , Scrapper traces one man's desperate quest for redemption in a devastated Detroit. "Has the feel of Cormac McCarthy's The Road set in present-day Motor City... powerful." -- Publishers Weekly Detroit has descended into ruin. Kelly scavenges for scrap metal from the hundred thousand abandoned buildings in a part of the city known as "the zone," an increasingly wild landscape where one day he finds something far more valuable than the copper he's come to steal: a kidnapped boy, crying out for rescue. Briefly celebrated as a hero, Kelly secretly avenges the boy's unsolved kidnapping, a task that will take him deeper into the zone and into a confrontation with his own past and long-buried traumas. The second novel from the acclaimed author of In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods , Scrapper is a devastating reimagining of one of America's greatest cities, its beautiful architecture, its lost houses, shuttered factories, boxing gyms, and storefront churches. With precise, powerful prose, it asks: What do we owe for our crimes, even those we've committed to protect the people we love?

A motorcycle stunt rider turns to robbing banks as a way to provide for his lover and their newborn child, a decision that puts him on a collision course with an ambitious rookie cop navigating a department ruled by a corrupt detective.